Jalen Milroe’s first practice of Seahawks training camp in 2026 was enough to raise some real questions in Seattle.
That’s not where the Seahawks want to be with a second-year quarterback they’d like to develop into a useful piece. Milroe has the athletic traits that jump off the page, and by all accounts he’s also the kind of person teammates and coaches can appreciate. But the football side of this still looks unsettled.
The concern starts with what Seattle already saw last season. As a rookie, Milroe was considered raw and in need of much more development before he could handle meaningful game snaps.
He appeared three times in 2025 and didn’t find success in any of those chances. The low point came in Week 5 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when Seattle was driving in Bucs territory and tried a gimmicky play with Milroe pitching to Zach Charbonnet.
The result was a fumble, a crucial turnover in an overtime loss that might have gone differently if the Seahawks had finished that drive.
According to Mike Salk and Maura Dooley of Seattle Sports 710 AM, the first practice of 2026 didn’t exactly calm those nerves. Milroe spent a lot of the session checking the ball down instead of pushing it downfield with confidence. Playing it safe is one thing, but Seattle needs to see a quarterback willing to take chances in practice and show off the arm talent that makes him intriguing in the first place.
Even more troubling was the accuracy. Some of the shorter throws were inconsistent, and that’s a bigger problem than hesitation.
Indecision can improve with reps. Accuracy issues are harder to ignore, especially when they’ve followed Milroe since his Alabama days.
If he was going to make a leap, the expectation was that offseason work on his mechanics would show up right away in camp. So far, that hasn’t happened.
And if Milroe ever had to play in a real game, it would likely mean something has gone badly wrong for Sam Darnold and Drew Lock. In that scenario, Seattle might be stuck leaning on the run almost every snap, which is no recipe for a functional offense.
That’s why training camp and the preseason matter so much here. Milroe should get most of the reps overall, while Darnold may not even play more than a series or two.
The Seahawks need to find out whether the 2025 third-round pick can actually help them in real games. If the answer turns out to be no, Seattle may have a difficult call to make on a quarterback who hasn’t yet given them enough reasons to feel comfortable.
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